It's with great pleasure for my Microsoft colleagues and me to announce that Oxford has chosen Microsoft products for its Groupware solution. This will see Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint deployed to all the university's 32,000 staff and students to enable them to communicate and collaborate more effectively. The collegiate university selected Microsoft following a thorough investigation of the university's needs and evaluating these against a number of possible solutions.

During the launch, Professor Paul Jeffreys gave some of the reasons for Oxford's choice:

"The Microsoft solution was strongly favoured over competitors because of the range of Groupware functions that it offers, its ease of use, the size of the installed user-base, its interoperability with existing applications, its market share, and developments anticipated on the software roadmap."

Following the formal launch, the audience of some 150 delegates visited booths outside Said Business School's Nelson Mandela lecture hall to gain further understanding on how the solution will begin to take shape. Several members of OUCS and colleagues of mine from Microsoft were on hand to discuss elements of the project from Identity to SharePoint. Nick Umney on the SharePoint booth was inundated with excited question for the whole day. It was fantastic to see so much passion and commitment to the project from both Oxford and Microsoft and I look forward to continuing to work with Oxford through the delivery of the project.